ikat – Page 8 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Stepping into Curves

I have been at my loom these past two weeks but also at my laptop keyboard as I move ahead with the new Andean Pebble Weave pattern book I am preparing. The new book has grown from 127 charts to 132…Help!…I can’t seem to stop! Give it one more week and I think I will be done. I am very excited about it. It has been fun weaving the new patterns into samples to be photographed for the book. Each block chart has its own photographed sample.

Between bouts of charting and weaving samples I wove the Silver Fern leaf pattern that I showed you in progress in my last post. Maori Koru motifs represent the curly yet-to-be fully unfurled fern leaves and I wanted to draw, chart and weave a representation of my own as a joyful reminder of my recent visit to New Zealand.

My first sample of the shape was a little too flat along its bottom edge and so I made a few adjustments in an attempt to create a bit more of an impression of “curviness’ and then set about weaving a narrow band for a book mark in 60/2 silk.

This is really just a test-run of my charted pattern but it is nice that it can be turned into something useful like a book mark.

The sample will help me see if the proportions are to my liking and if the figure looks too flat or is indeed quite curvy as I have hoped it to be. It will also help me to experiment with the ideal width.

My sample started out too narrow but the figure started to settle and look nicely rounded as I allowed the band to widen. I attempted to let the band go even wider hoping for even better proportions and curves but might have overdone it at the end as I could see a little bit of red weft exposed in the black areas.

I am pleased with the result and may end up using this motif in a larger project at some point.

In Maori culture, the Koru is said to represent renewal and hope for the future. As there have been some quite significant changes going on in my life recently, these concepts are particularly meaningful to me right now.

Next on the loom will be a silk neck ribbon for a brilliant little macrame seahorse that I bought from a talented artisan in Australia. I think I am going to use some of the patterns in the Rivers and Oceans set that I published in my Complementary-warp Pattern Book. That set is made up of some of my patterns as well those contributed by my weaving friends Julia and Kristin….a variety fish, sea creatures and watery swirls and eddies. Those watery patterns should make a very pretty band for the seahorse.

A few of the fish and water-themed motifs from my Complementary-warp Pattern Book.

Something else that is underway right now is another ikat piece using the tiny balls of naturally-dyed silk that I was given a few years ago. I combined a lot of the colors in two ikat warps earlier this year. They were very colorful base warps that I proceeded to wrap in ikat tape and then dye jet black. The areas wrapped with tape resisted the dye and gave me a warp of multi-color figures with stepped diagonals on a solid black background which I could then weave into cloth.

My latest warp is much more subdued as I am using a collection of paler more subtle colors…mostly the green, grey and blue-ish tones with a smattering of gold. I plan to dye this one blue with some powders that my friend Mog gave me when I was visiting in Australia. It involves mixing two lots of powder to get the blue I want. Mog gave me very clear instructions. I just hope I get it right!

As far as the pattern goes, I am still using figures with stepped sides but I am making the steps a lot smaller in the hope of creating something slightly more curvy….stepping my way slowly into curves, you might say. Even if I fail on the attempt at curves, I think the pattern will be quite nice…that is, IF I tie the ikat tape tight enough to avoid leaks and IF the threads don’t shift too much as I weave and IF I get the right tone of blue when I dye….so many things to consider when doing ikat!

And, I have this idea of adding some plain weave in a pale tone of blue to the sides when the time comes to weave the piece. I might weave some motifs into that part using supplementary weft. Yes, I can feel very confident about this plan at this point as the actual weaving part of this project is still a long way off!

Here’s the warp stretched on my ”ikat frame” with some ikat ties in place. I have already decided that the first shape on the left is not quite right and so I will most likely be cutting those ties off, adjusting my pattern and re-tying. So, I see days and days of tying plastic strips on this warp… measuring, adjusting, cutting, starting again! Call me crazy but it is actually very satisfying. It provides a nice ”relax” time away from the keyboard and the book. In the same way, the book gives me nice breaks from tying ikat. It’s all good!

I will leave you with a reminder that all my e-books (PDFs) are now available at Taproot Video. It has been impossible to change every single old link on my blog over the last nine to ten years from Patternfish to the books’ new home at Taproot Video (I am, however, still trying to!) I see via my blog stats that a few people still click on the old Patternfish links now and then. I do hope that you somehow find your way to the Taproot Video website eventually.

If you are curious and/or excited about my up-coming new book of Andean Pebble Weave patterns but have not yet learned how to do complementary-warp pick-up or Andean Pebble Weave, my e-books(PDFs) on Complementary-warp Pick-up and Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms will show you how. The Complementary-warp Pick-up book teaches you a method that can be used on any kind of loom. The only experience you need is the ability to warp your loom and weave a plain-weave warp-faced band. The method enables you to weave Andean Pebble Weave and any other kind of complementary-warp structure.

The Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms book teaches methods that are particularly suitable for those who use a standard inkle loom. Those who are already weaving plain-weave bands on their loom will have all the skills necessary to continue with this book. Support in the form of video clips is also provided.

I hope to show you a lovely ikat warp on the loom and ready weave the next time I see you here. And maybe I will announce the release of the new pattern book and show you my seahorse pendant on its silk band. Thank you all for your continued support. Now it’s back to work!

Backstrap Weaving – In the Pursuit of Curls

I am once again in the pursuit of curls, curves, circles and spirals as I attempt to draw a chart for a figure inspired by Maori Koru. The Koru is a spiral shape that represents the unfurling of a frond of New Zealand’s silver fern.

Image from the website of activityvillage.co.uk

The challenge is to figure out how to make the lines that I can naturally create in my weaving somehow all work together to give the impression of a curve. In my tool box of natural lines are wavy verticals, smooth horizontals, smooth diagonals and stepped diagonals at various angles. In my experience, the more ends I have to work with, the easier it is to create something curve-like. However, it’s amazing how when weaving a band with only nine ends per shed, a figure can appear to be curved. Below you can see an Andean figure that so many people have told me reminds them of Maori Koru, including my weaving friends in New Zealand itself.

I have read a few different descriptions of what the Koru means in Maori culture. One description names it as a symbol of creation. Another says that it represents new life, growth and peace. The spiral shapes are the kinds of things I had in mind when I first started studying how to create curves in ikat and I collected images of Maori kowhaiwhai scroll patterns so that I could attempt to create something similar in ikat. That was all very well until I sat in front of a fresh white warp with ikat tape in hand and realized how difficult it was going to be! I first needed to see if I could create just one simple curve before I could even think about creating something as complex as a kowhaiwhai pattern.

Image from the website of silverfernz.com

I decided that I needed to step back a bit and start out slowly with large simple curves and then perhaps think about trying a more intricate kowhaiwhai pattern after I had had several years of experience with much simpler shapes! So, I just went with circles and I was pretty pleased with those….

…except that I forgot to consider take-up and my nice circles ended up flattened once they were woven into cloth. Another part of this particular experiment was to create pick-up patterns within my ikat circles. It is a quirky piece of work which has made a nice slip cover for my laptop.

I remember when I was living in Chile and just starting out experimenting with weaving on a trial-and-error basis somewhere around 1994. I had knocked together a simple wooden frame with nails at two ends to hold warp threads. I had no idea how the warp threads should be spaced. All I knew is that the weft yarn had to go over one and under one. Because of the way I had spaced the warp threads, I was ending up with weft-faced cloth and that was fine. Of course at that time, I didn’t even know that there was a choice.

After weaving a couple of small pieces that had the shape of hour glasses, (I finally figured out how to lay in the weft correctly to stop that kind of draw-in) I found that by adding and changing colors I could create little patterns on one face of the cloth with a whole mess of ends hanging out on the back.

From there, what I really wanted to do was to create images. However, I had little at my disposal for ideas in terms of books or magazines. This CD cover by the band Split Enz provided inspiration instead and I remember weaving a very simple version of one of these patterns into a piece using acrylic yarn that became a cover for a very small pillow. Sadly the piece never got photographed and is one of many things that had to be left behind when I moved to Bolivia.

It’s funny that after all these years I have come around full circle to once again have a strong desire to weave these kinds of patterns.

So, which structure should I use to try to create my Koru-like pattern? I quite like using warp-faced double weave for this kind of thing. I can create shapes that are very angular, as in the pattern below left, as well as ones that appear quite curvy, below right. The finished piece, if successful, will be called a book mark but it really will be just a sample for perhaps something bigger later. Double weave in fine silk will give me a piece that is not too thick for a book mark.

Double weave is also the structure I used for my Shipibo-inspired piece in which I wove fine curvy lines within a frame of bold angular lines…

Using supplementary weft for patterns on a base of warp-faced plain weave has also enabled me to create the impression of curves. I designed some paisley figures for both warp-faced double weave and plain weave with supplementary weft. The process started with a paper paisley cut-out which I traced onto my charting paper….

It was very sweet in warp-faced double weave but, as I was wanting weave the patterns into a scarf, I decided that double weave would be too heavy. I went with using supplementary-weft to make the patterns on a warp-faced plain-weave base….

When I look back at these patterns, I start to think that maybe a Koru-like pattern won’t be so hard to design after all. I have actually already made a preliminary sketch on my charting paper and now just need to iron out all the kinks. The double weave warp with the paisley pattern I showed above still exists. I can use that same warp to test my first attempt at charting the Koru. I use four sets of heddles when I do warp-faced double weave with fine thread like 60/2 silk and it will be nice to be able to weave this sample with a warp that has been already set up. Now I just have to dig around and find it!

I had a de-clutter frenzy when I got back from my latest trip away and I am hoping that I didn’t toss it out. I came home feeling stifled by stuff. Once I get into one of my de-cluttering moods, I can get pretty carried away!

If the book mark pattern works, I’ll make a silk ribbon with curvy design on which to hang my Koru pendant. I also have a lovely seahorse pendant that was made by a talented macrame artisan that I met when in Australia which needs a patterned silk ribbon…something wave-like to represent the ocean…more curves! Hopefully, I’ll have some progress to show you soon.

In the meantime, I am putting the finishing touches on a book of one hundred and twenty-seven Andean Pebble Weave patterns.

Another one??

Well, I have to admit that this is not exactly a new book. Back in 2012 I published More Adventures with warp-faced Pick-up Patterns, a book of patterns inspired by ethnic textiles from around the world. In that book I introduce weavers to the “spotted chart” for all the patterns in the first half of the book. In all my other books, my patterns are charted on the more conventional style of chart which is made up of stacked rectangular blocks.

My idea for using the spotted charts in 2012 was based on opening up and promoting the possibility of readers designing their own motifs. The spotted charts make designing so easy. And, many of the readers did just that! I was happy to then be able to make roughly 25% of the Complementary-warp Pattern Book that I published in early 2018 about original patterns contributed by devoted fans of the spotted chart.

Above: Original patterns contributed by Maja Bürger (spindle), Laura McCarty (dog chasing squirrel) and Carlos Vargas (bee) to the Complementary-warp Pattern Book published in 2018.

However, I know that many weavers have not had the time to study that spotted charting system and have by-passed all the awesome Andean Pebble Weave patterns (Celtic knot-work patterns, Guaraní stars, motifs inspired by Central Asian textiles, to name just a few!) in the front half of my More Adventures book in favor of the other kinds of patterns charted on block-style charts in the second half of the book.

So, I have now had all those spotted charts transformed into block-style charts. There are 127 of them and that is what I am about to publish.

Having said all that, my ”new” book will be aimed at two audiences. It can act as a supplement for those who own my previously published More Adventures book and who have not had the time or inclination to get into the spotted charts, or it can be a completely new book of patterns for those of you who have woven using my Complementary-warp Pick-up or my Andean Pebble Weave or Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms books.

See you with more news about the ”new” book soon!

Backstrap Weaving – The In-box

I thought I had best clear out the In-box of all the images of wonderful woven projects from friends and acquaintances that I have been accumulating to show here on my blog. Some of them are emailed to me, some of them I photographed myself when I visited friends and others have come to me as I prowl about in the online groups.

My friend Diane recently went on a long campervan trip to Alaska and entertained herself during those long hours of daylight in the northern evenings by weaving a new band for her fisherman husband’s hat…

She combined various fish and geometric patterns from my Complementary-warp Pattern Book and used a backstrap loom.

Victoria Kusch Erker was also attracted to the cute fish motifs and you can see one that she is weaving into band on her inkle loom. There are four of these cuties in my pattern book. I adapted them to pebble weave from a band of tablet-woven fish.

Victoria then went on to weave a band with the cheeky viscachas that also appear in my pattern book. It’s hard to believe that this pattern came from a fragment of pre-Columbian cloth. It looks so contemporary.The owner of the fragment shared pictures with me so that I could study and chart the pattern. It’s adorable. The band includes a cat figure that is also seen on pre-Columbian pieces as well as some geometric patterns which are all charted in my book.

Kathy King gathered motifs from Bedouin textiles to create this beautiful band. The Bedouin weavers pick patterns for only one face of their cloth which leaves very long warp floats on the back. However, one simple additional step allows the weaver to avoid those floats and create two bonded layers of cloth. This is what we do when we weave warp-faced double weave. I have a tutorial on this structure here on this blog.

Kathy also quickly moved on to creating patterns of her own. Her backstrap loom goes with her when she travels to escape low winter temperatures.

Jane Milner showed me what she has been doing in Andean Pebble Weave…

Motifs that are woven in certain structures in tablet-weaving can be very easily adapted to Andean Pebble Weave and this is what Jane has done. I adapted, with permission, some tablet-woven motifs by Louise Ström for publication in my second book and I believe that Jane used some of Louise’s patterns as well.

Terry and Jennifer made jewelry from the eye-pattern tubular band aka ñawi awapa:

I teach this in one of my latest books, The Eye-pattern Tubular Band and Other Decorative Finishing Techniques in which I show how the band can be woven without any loom at all (that is, with the warp stretched between your waist and a fixed object), or if you prefer, on an inkle loom. The ebook includes the support of video clips.

Lynn wove the tubular band while sewing it to the edge of a pouch. This is actually the traditional use of these kinds of bands…as an edging. She used a piece of fabric which was woven by my Bolivian weaving teachers in the co-op that they run in Cochabamba. My friend Dorinda, who lived with and supported the weavers in their establishment of the co-op over many years, has lengths of these beautiful pieces of cloth for sale if you are interested. You can contact me via this blog or you can contact Dorinda via the PAZA Bolivia blog if you would like to buy them and help support the weavers. The yarn is hand spun and dyed with natural substances.

Lynn has a very interesting life style…she caretakes lighthouses around the world! and always takes some weaving and sewing projects along with her when she is doing a stint of lighthouse watching.

Here’s a picture of my new weaving friend Jan who was bitten by the backstrap bug during my visit. She has a nice comfy set-up in her living room…

On the foot-rest you can see one of the lined zippered pouches that the ladies in the Bolivian weaving co-op also make to sell. The natural dye colors are so beautiful!

Hand spun wool yarn, natural dye substances and weavers skilled in producing beautiful cloth on simple looms.

Jennifer, who wove the tubular band necklace with the star pendant I showed above, has also been making gorgeous wrist cuffs. using patterns from my Complementary-warp Pick-up e-book. This book teaches the technique and includes 42 pattern charts.

Jennifer is using the wooden ends from Purl and Loop which come with metal clasps ready to ”install”. I have bought a few sets of these for myself but have yet to use them.

And, here’s a picture of the efforts of several of my friends who are weaving patterns with supplementary weft…

I love how this technique allows color changes when ever you feel like it. It can be as colorful or as subdued as you like. The set-up is very simple as it only requires two basic sheds. You are weaving patterns into a base of plain weave. This means that this technique can be easily woven using an inkle loom.

This technique is the topic of one of the three books that I currently have underway. Until then, if you are curious, I wrote a very basic tutorial on it many years ago.

Ann wove my leaf pattern at left in beautiful autumn tones.

Since I last visited Mary and wove double weave with her, I invented a little song to remember the moves. It can be quite an ear worm but Mary believes that it really helps and she really took off with her double weave when I saw her recently.

She put together a cool stand for her inkle loom which can be dismantled and easily carried around.

I got to see Deanna’s double weave Iching hexagrams in person on my last visit. They are so striking! Deanna uses a backstrap loom for her double weave.

Patricia Stern Mulcahy wove some bands for key fobs. The hardware she used for these allows you to clamp them directly onto raw edges. There is no need to bother with turning a hem. The bands are folded with both raw edges clamped. There are those adorable viscachas again. She wove some of the individual geometric patterns from my book as continuous ones and I really like the effect.

Nancy uses her inkle loom for her pebble weave and tells me that she has become accustomed to the spotted charts that I use in my second book. They do require time and little patience to get used to but I can tell you that they are a great aid to moving on to designing your own patterns. About a quarter of the patterns in my Complementary-warp Pattern book were created by my students or readers who use the spotted charts to sketch out their ideas. These knot-work patterns, woven by Nancy, come from the second book…More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns.

Martina in Germany wove some pebble weave paw prints and river-themed patterns into key fobs too. The heart-shaped hardware is unique. I had never seen them before.

Theresa Cariello uses the popular Mini Wave loom for her complementary-warp work. I love the way she used the horizontal bars on the border of her pick-up pattern…such a striking effect! Her band is so crisp.

And, to finish, I’ll show you what became of my latest ikat project. The idea was to see how the finer, slicker silk thread behaved. I abandoned all my fancy ideas about adding panels to the sides and weaving supplementary-weft patterns in them. That will come later. I decided to concentrate on doing everything in exactly the same way so that I could see the effect of using the finer thread. It did shift more in this project than in the first one.

Here it is out of the dye bath and almost dry. And now, on the loom with a pile of cut and unwrapped ikat tape nearby. I unwrap gradually as I weave.

There is just enough shift in the warp threads to make it immediately recognizable as ikat but not so much that the pattern is spoiled. I know that many people like the blurring. I don’t want too much of it. Below you can see it off the loom before I wet and then pressed it. I really like the way the colors darkened when it was wet.

Here it is pressed and finished with a bit of sheen that would be expected from silk.

I don’t have any real plans for this. It is part of the experiments as I work my way to finer and finer silk and longer and wider pieces. I have one more multi-color base-warp experiment that I would like to do with all the shades of blues and green that I have left from my little skeins of naturally dyed silk yarn but that will have to wait until I return.

Backstrap Weaving – Tying and Stitching

I have been enjoying some stretches of quiet time in which I have been sewing and tying tape onto a new ikat warp.

The sewing part of my reward time was about converting the long strip of cloth that I recently wove on the Karen backstrap loom into a table square. I cut the strip into five pieces so that they could be joined side-by-side into an almost-square piece of cloth, roughly 24″ x 24″. I think that it is something I can use on tables to display my workshop samples.

I wanted to lay the strips side by side and join them edge to edge using one of the decorative stitches that Bolivian weavers use when they join their woven panels. There are many varieties of these joining stitches and I chose one of the simplest one. The needle and thread follow a basic figure-eight path. The needle emerges from bottom to top a certain distance away from the edge of panel A. Then it dives down in the gap between the two edges of the panels and emerges from bottom to top the same distance away from the edge of panel B. Then it once again dives down in the gap between the edges of the two panels and starts again from the beginning.

I used this joining stitch a couple of times before when I connected wool panels to make lap blankets. Here’s one of the two panels of the purple blanket on the loom…

And, here it is connected to its partner with the decorative stitching…

I took care of raw edges by eventually covering the perimeter of the blanket with the woven band you can see below…

The red and brown blanket got the same treatment. Above you can see the two panels sitting side by side before I sewed them together.I used a contrast color for the join which made the stitching practical as well as decorative. This blanket also had its perimeter covered and raw edges protected with a woven band.

I guess the hardest part is making sure that the needle always pierces the cloth the same distance away from the edge. Cotton seems to demand a higher level of accuracy and I wasn’t confident enough to go with a contrast color for the stitching. I matched the color of the sewing thread to the cloth and the little inaccuracies give my stitching a fairly ”rustic” look.

Stitching in progress. There were four joins to cover.

I covered the two raw edges with cross-knit-loop stitches and left the two selvedges uncovered….

I kept the cross-knit-loop stitches as close together as possible. This gave good coverage and meant that I could just turn the raw edge over once and feel confident that the stitching would cover and protect it.

My other non-weaving activity was time spent tying a new pattern into my next ikat project. It’s another short warp as I am still at the stage where all I am hoping to do is learn and improve my skills before I launch into a ”real” project.

The base colors show against black in the last silk ikat project.

I again used the naturally dyed silk sample skeins that I had been given.

This warp is made of a different kind of silk to that which I used in my last ikat project. It is different in that it is finer, more slick and has a higher twist. I guess it more closely resembles the silk that I eventually hope to use in the real project, whatever that might be.

A major difference is that this kind of silk absorbed the natural dyes in a very different way too. The colors in my last warp were more muted and “sad” I suppose you could say. These colors are brighter and clearer….almost too bright for my liking and I might over dye the project later to sadden the colors if the contrast against the black dye is too high.

It’s the differences in this thread that are of interest to me. Will the fact that it is finer and slicker make it more difficult for me to achieve good firm ties when I apply the ikat tape? Will the black dye bleed under the ikat ties? Will the threads shift more freely out of alignment when I weave because they are more slick than those I have tried in other experiments?

To make it all a bit different to the last ikat experiment, I plan to add two panels to either side of this piece when the time comes to weave it. I hope to be able to weave motifs with supplementary weft in those two panels that resemble the ones I have created with the ikat tape.

When I posted pictures of my last experiment in online forums, questions arose about the tape I am using. It was given to me years ago by my weaving friend Betty. You can see a roll of it at left.

I don’t know where she got it from but the only place that I have seen selling anything that seems to be specifically designed for ikat is Maiwa in Canada.

I used cassette tape with some success before I was given the ikat tape. It worked very well when I was using cold water dyes on cotton. It failed in hot water, though. It held knots well but you had to be careful when pulling knots tight as it could snap. The ikat tape has never snapped.

Others in the forums have mentioned using flagging tape and cut strips of plastic grocery store bags when they have taken ikat workshops. One of the features I like a lot about the ikat tape is that it can be split and torn vertically into strips as fine as you like. I am not sure if that is a good thing if you are trying to use the entire width of the tape to wrap a very large area. I think it in that case that it may have a tendency to split when you don’t want it to.

This is probably one of the last ikat experiments that I did using cassette tape….

I know that you probably can’t make out anything here but this is the pattern that I am currently tying. I mark the pattern with a charcoal pencil and I use a paint brush with stiff bristles to “erase” mistakes in my marking.

I am finding straight horizontal lines the hardest thing. I tie each bundle separately and just hope that the plastic wraps line up well enough to give a smooth horizontal. I have been tempted to put several bundles together and bind them all at once but I know that if I were to grab my bangs in a bunch and cut straight across, I wouldn’t end up with a straight line.

The other thing I did in my reward time was to cover the journal with the last ikat piece and add it to the collection of little books with hand woven covers.

I was pleased that the three motifs in the middle ended up nicely seated on the spine of the book.

I have actually finished all the tying part of the latest ikat project. Now I just need to carefully inspect it and make sure that I didn’t forget any parts. You can see in an old experiment in the picture below that the top left motif is missing one wrap on its extreme left. It went into the dye bath like that. So, I will be looking very closely over my current pattern to make sure it is complete!

It will go into the dye bath tomorrow. Fingers crossed that all goes well!

Backstrap Weaving – Something from Scraps

I was motivated by the announcement that the summer 2019 weave-along (WAL) in one of the weaving groups on Ravelry would be “Weaving with Hand-dyed or Painted Yarns”. The WAL for the last couple of summers has been about band weaving and although I happily participated in those, this newest topic is much more interesting and challenging for me.

I decided that it was a good time to try ikat using silk for warp and started scratching around in my silk stash which includes cones and skeins of 30/2, 60/2 and 140/2 thread. I figured I would be wise to start with the heaviest 30/2 thread even though that still seemed very intimidating. I have mostly used cotton for my ikat experiments in the past, the finest being this one with 20/2s.

I was able to turn this experiment into something useful…a nice draw-string bag for my Kindle…

I had been using cold water dyes for these cotton experiments. Now was the time to take out the lovely Landscape and Jacquard brand dyes that I had bought a few years ago in the hope of dyeing wool and silk for some of my projects. I had all I needed: the ikat tape, the right dyes and a selection of silk from which to choose, but I still hesitated.

Ikat projects are such a big undertaking. There’s all the time spent designing and then tying a pattern, not to mention all the measuring and care to make sure that the pattern gets tied on straight. My eyes always seem to to tell me something completely different to what the ruler is indicating. Then you can never really be sure if you have wrapped the yarn well or tightly enough. There’s always a chance the dye will seep into the wrapped yarn and spoil the motif. And, finally, even if the initial tying and dyeing stages have been successful, you can never know just how much the threads will shift on the loom to possibly blur the pattern out of recognition.

The fineness of my silk in my stash was intimidating. So, I was quite relieved to discover in my scratching around that I still had scraps of naturally dyed silk left over from other projects. This silk is much heavier and seemed like it would be much more manageable for my very first ikat experiments with silk. I had been offered all these tiny dyed skeins of silk by a guild when the guild member who had created them had passed away. No one else had seen a use for them, but I knew that I could use them for small projects on my backstrap loom. This was what I was able to bring back home with me to Bolivia….

You may remember that some time ago I used them to weave four pieces which became covers for journals…

These are the remaining scraps I found in my closet…

Ikat Cat by Budi Satria Kwan fineartamerica.com

There are two quite different kinds of silk rolled up in these tiny balls. I opted for the heavier of the two for my ikat project and decided to wind a crazy multi-colored warp. I wanted to weave a piece that would cover a journal that I had left over from the other project. The warp only needed to be nineteen inches long to give me enough fabric for the cover as well as a comfortable amount of working space on my backstrap loom.

I was inspired by a picture of some fabric I had seen on the internet many years ago of the silhouette of a multi-color cat sitting on a dark background. I had saved it and kept it in the back of my mind. I wasn’t feeling brave enough to go for such an ambitious shape right now and decided to stick with some basic straight lines for this experiment. I had done some experiments with creating curved shapes in ikat some years ago too. They were quite successful but would have been even better if I had remembered to account for take-up when I tied the shapes. My circles had come out a little flattened!

I really liked the simple idea of having the multi-colored shape appearing on the black background.

Here’s the warp I created.

Next, I extended the warp on a frame so that I could start tying in the design. A friend lent me a small table that made a perfect frame for this.

Those light pieces of thread you can see in the picture are enclosing the sections of threads that will be tied. Most bundles were made up of twelve ends with a few evenly distributed ones that held fourteen ends so that I could cover the total of 270 ends across the width of the warp.

I wrapped the thread in ikat tape in several short sessions over three days. The frequent breaks are necessary as I tend to get sloppy with my measurements when I get tired.

Here you can see the warp off the frame and ready to be soaked before going into the dye pot.

Here it is after being rinsed and left to dry overnight…

And now on the backstrap loom, heddles in place, first section unwrapped and with weaving underway…

Rather than remove all the ikat wraps at once, I like to slowly unwrap as the weaving progresses. I feel that leaving some of the wraps in place helps reduce the amount of shift in the threads which gives a crisper design. I know that the shifting and blurring can be attractive but I have found that it is less so when the motifs have blunt horizontal edges as mine do. Shifting in motifs like these can sometimes create spots and/or lines of color that are totally disconnected from the main motif. The practice of not removing all the ties at once gives me a relatively small space in which to weave and operate the loom. I use fine swords and wrap my weft around a stick rather than the regular shaped shuttle that I prefer. I can slide the stick with the weft into a very small shed. I keep weaving until I absolutely can’t continue due to the lack of space and then I remove the next ikat ties to free up some space to continue.

Almost there…

I am hoping that I have planned this well enough so that the black squares in the middle of the center row of three motifs sit right in the middle of the spine of the journal.

Done!…

I am very pleased (and relieved!).

Ikat projects are always a big unknown for me. They can end up being a mess or a success. I’ll call this one a success.

It does seems a bit weird over-dyeing naturally dyed silk with chemical dye, but there really wasn’t a whole lot more I could do with the scraps of silk that were left in my closet except perhaps make some wrist cuffs. I already made the cuff you can see at left when I was sampling for the first set of book covers.

I am glad that this project still shows off the beauty of the natural dye colors.

There is probably enough of the other kind of silk that I was given to do some further ikat experiments. It is finer and slicker. Maybe I will make an ikat cuff or two. The more experience the better if I am ever to move on to my finer 30/2s and 60/2s silk thread!

I could have produced a very similar effect in warp-faced double weave without all the mess and risk. I was thinking about that. Double weave would have given me a thicker fabric for a start, which I didn’t want. Plus the two layers of cloth would not have connected in the areas of solid black. That can sometimes create a sort of ballooning effect between the areas where the layers are in fact connected. In any case, the more ikat I do the more confident I will feel about eventually reaching my goal of creating complex curved shapes…the kinds I wouldn’t be able to achieve in double weave or the other patterning structures that I use.

Now all that remains to be done is to look for some pretty paper to use on the inside of the front and back covers of the journal.

Between bouts of ikat wrapping, I started sewing together strips of the green cloth from my Karen backstrap loom project to make a table square that will be approximately twenty-five inches square. It will be another piece on which I can display my samples at my workshops. I’ll show you my progress on that in the next post.

And, this will be my last chance to remind you to make sure you have downloaded all your purchases from Patternfish. You have until the end of the month to do so.